Too Deep
by Stethoscopes and Pinards
Summary: Rita oneshot


**I think this is a one shot. I hope it's ok because I am honestly not sure if it works or not. **

It wasn't supposed to be like this. Hell this was most definitely not in her plans and yet somehow it had happened without her notice. She hadn't even realised her guard had dropped long enough and yet now she found her eyes drawn to her colleague. It wasn't like she tried to hide it. Indeed she cared little about what others thought about her love life – it was after all none of their business – but she hadn't wanted to find herself back here. Feeling this made her vulnerable.

Of course it had been easier in those months when the other woman had been away. There had been the moments of togetherness, the professional conversations where she'd had to fight against trying for more. But in truth, it hadn't been as easy as she tried to convince herself it was. She had still looked for the other woman, considered more than once just calling to check on her. She could have passed it off as friendship, as professional concern even but she'd always dropped the phone from her hand. Letting herself get close was asking for trouble.

And now this.

It was an average shift. Perhaps it could be considered boring by Holby standards, but that didn't mean there weren't dramas. There were always dramas in a hospital, if you looked closely enough but most chose to stay looking just at the surface. That wasn't always a bad thing, it meant should you need to you could kept things hidden. She had taken advantage of that so many times. Of course that could do as much damage as letting people see, but at the time it had seemed like the best option.

She couldn't recall much of what happened in the first few hours of the shift. It didn't matter much. She had done as she always did, joked with her colleagues, treated patients and tried to keep the smile painted on her face. She had seen the paramedics only briefly. They had wheeled a patient in to resus but she had not been needed. Still she had found herself paused for a second, as she watched them.

It was when she headed for her lunch break that she had caught sight of them properly. She had paused in the staffroom door when she had heard a familiar voice. She had felt her heart rate quicken. She cursed herself for such a primitive response. She should have controlled herself better. It should be the same as with the others. She should have continued in to the room, and yet she couldn't move. She had listened to them, watched how they interacted with each other. It was what she wanted. It was the life she craved and yet it was a lie. It wasn't real and yet people seemed to accept it as such. It was just one of those things but what she was watching didn't seem fake.

She watched him react to a call come in. How his face changed slightly as he took in what the other voice was saying until the moment when the two paramedics left. She had stood frozen for a moment longer, just watching the space where they had been. She couldn't help it. She wanted it, that. She wanted to be the other person there, and yet she couldn't.

She tried to carry on. She tried to forget. She tried to convince herself that this was no more real than the relationship she saw. She tried to force herself in to nurse mode, to switch off from herself but instead of getting lost in the world of patients, she was waiting. She found her senses to be on high alert, waiting for the moment the paramedics would slam their way back through the ED doors.

She knew it was coming. In the moment before her name was shouted, she knew something had changed. She felt the shift in the air, the way everything seemed to change in a fraction of a second before anyone knew anything had even happened. And then the chaos hit.

The slam of doors, as the people in green rushed through the doors. Mouths moving at a frantic rate as they reeled of the vitals of the body on the trolley. It was not the colleagues she expected to see, but she moves instinctively towards them. She has been called. Her brain tries to process information that is shouted, each word running in to the next as she tries to force them in to something that makes sense.

She is still behind. She hasn't even seen the patient yet but she knows. She knows from the body language, the movement that it isn't good. Even without the call of vitals, she would know. She knows they will still do everything in their power, in the hopes that today they will perform the miracle that people expect of them. But there is already a sense of knowing. That this isn't the day, this isn't the patient.

But there is something she doesn't understand. There is a buzz of something. A feeling she has felt only a few times before. It is the feeling no member of the team ever wants to feel, one that you never forget. It's the knowledge that the person in front of you is one of your own. The fact that this patient is not just a patient, it is your colleague, your friend. Every patient is somebody's family but this is different. This patient is a member of your family.

And now her heart is in her mouth, because she understands more. The people in green are not who she expected, and she thinks she knows what that means. Her eyes dart and she sees the flash of green material on the trolley, that small detail she had not seen before. She still cannot see who, but she is shaking as she moves closer in to position. She doesn't want to see and yet she has too. She is here, and she has to help. She is part of the team, and this is one of them.

Things start to fall in to place. People move, voices shout. She takes it all in. She moves on instinct. Body seeming to take on a life of its own because her mind cannot do what it is supposed to. She knows she is doing everything, just as those around her are doing everything that they can. And yet she isn't here, not really.

And then things slow. The desperation, the movement. Everything settles to nothing, as words are spoken. Words she had known would be said but now they mean something different. She lowers her head, and turns unable to watch. Her eyes move to the door, through the glass she sees a flash of green. The partner. A friend.

No longer is there the jovial expression. There is no laughter or happiness in that face now. There is realisation. The reality of loss. There are eyes which fight desperately against the tears that fill them. There is the desperation to hear that what they see is not the truth, and the knowledge that that cannot be.

She wants to turn away from that too. She doesn't want to see. And yet how can see forget it now she has? Instead she finds herself moving once more. Walking slowly, and yet she is outside of that room far quicker than she wanted.

She doesn't know what to expect. She doesn't know what she wants to happen. Perhaps nothing. That would be for the best and yet …

She doesn't know how it happens. She doesn't know how they end up in each-others embrace. Nor does she know how the other woman's head comes to rest against her shoulder or quite why she acts as she does as she moves her away from the sight through the glass.

She lets her talk, lets the tears seep through the material of her uniform until the other woman grows quiet. All the while she keeps an arm around her. They stay wrapped in the embrace, and she remains uncertain of who initiated it, not that it matters. She stays there until the others come. She doesn't know how much time has passed, and it doesn't matter.

She slips awkwardly away. She hears voices behind her, she thinks she even hears her name but she cannot turn back. She moves blindly until she gets to the staff toilet, where she locks herself inside of the cubicle. Only then does she let herself break. She doesn't know why it all comes out now but every emotion ricochets against the cubicle walls as she fights desperately for control.

She shouldn't have let this happen. And now she isn't certain how to go back. In truth she isn't certain that she wants too.


End file.
